What's new
By:
Photoshop Gurus Forum

Welcome to Photoshop Gurus forum. Register a free account today to become a member! It's completely free. Once signed in, you'll enjoy an ad-free experience and be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Specific Object separation


S

Shikaka

New Member
Messages
3
Likes
0
Hi all.

Attached is a scan of a piece of my project’s car dashboard. I’m planning to paint the whole dashboard black including the part in the scan - which is a ventilation control panel. As you will see it has imprints of each setting. My plan is to paint the whole piece and get a company to print me the stickers so I can still see the dial setting.

The request is to separate the printed (white) digits, icons and lines as well as the red/blue temperature setting from the gray background. New background should be transparent and the whole picture should be kept in current scale.

Could someone edit this for me?
Thanks!
 

Attachments

JeffK said:
No easy task this - can I ask how you did it?
Click to expand...
No easy task indeed. I’d like to know also.

Given the granularity of the scan (presumably at 720 dpi) and the printing (much more stair-stepped), these two factors gave me fits.. I got a passable solution but not anywhere near this perfect. . To achieve this excellence I’d have to fabricate from scratch in a drawing package and then raster it. This result is impressive.

Whatever…the OP should verify that the scan was actually at 720ppi and that the metal plate in reality is 8.27 inches x 2.80 inches assuming there is nothing cut off on the top. I extrapolated from an assumption the right and left sides are symmetrical. If its not those dimensions [ iLLuSioN ] solution won't work.

On the offhand chance the OP decides to print a large sticker to include the entire panel with black background here’s a PNG of that although the original print stair stepping and some scanning anti-aliasing still exists, Ideally the OP should put illusions on a black background first. The printer can do that if needed

Bruce

twingo_ mod_OnBlk_4.png
 
Last edited:
I made it from scratch (so it's in vector format).

The image in the PDF has 600ppi - that's why my PNG file also has 600ppi.

But I assume that he uses water slide film (don't know the exact expression in english for this)
 
[ iLLuSioN ] said:
I made it from scratch (so it's in vector format).
The image in the PDF has 600ppi - that's why my PNG file also has 600ppi.
But I assume that he uses water slide film (don't know the exact expression in english for this)
Click to expand...

Having fooled with it, this would have been the best approach - still, it probably took some time and effort to do.
My own print experience is that this should be printed as linework, not as a raster file.

There are some things I don't understand about this project - if @Shikaka could answer some questions:

- From the PDF document, I'm getting a reading of 8.32 X 10.88 inches (211.33 X 276.35mm) at 300 ppi - both [ iLLuSioN ] and @ex_teacher got different sizes and ppi - which are correct?
- The file is also CMYK - quite honestly there's only 3 colors so it should be 3 spot colors not process.
- Are you planning to print decals to place by yourself? I would think screening directly onto the dashboard part for exact placement
- Have you assumed how to create this or has the printer given you instruction?

Just curious on the above - no judgement...
 
JeffK said:
Having fooled with it, this would have been the best approach - still, it probably took some time and effort to do.
My own print experience is that this should be printed as linework, not as a raster file.

There are some things I don't understand about this project - if @Shikaka could answer some questions:

- From the PDF document, I'm getting a reading of 8.32 X 10.88 inches (211.33 X 276.35mm) at 300 ppi - both [ iLLuSioN ] and @ex_teacher got different sizes and ppi - which are correct?
- The file is also CMYK - quite honestly there's only 3 colors so it should be 3 spot colors not process.
- Are you planning to print decals to place by yourself? I would think screening directly onto the dashboard part for exact placement
- Have you assumed how to create this or has the printer given you instruction?

Just curious on the above - no judgement...
Click to expand...
1. The part is: 209.5mm X 73mm. I can see in the scan that it has been cut a little on the right side. I can't say anything about the ppi, the scanner selects the format automatically and all the values are hidden away.
2. Since I'm not an expert, I have no idea how to comment on that.
3. Yes, I will do all myself. Now that I've learned (from previous posts) that I can do water sliding technique - it's even cheaper to just get the special paper for my home printer. I will do some screening before placing the final print - for sure.
4. See point 1. Fully automatic office printer, scanner etc
 
[ iLLuSioN ] said:
I made it from scratch (so it's in vector format).

The image in the PDF has 600ppi - that's why my PNG file also has 600ppi.

But I assume that he uses water slide film (don't know the exact expression in english for this)
Click to expand...
Hmmmm I loaded the PDF directly into Photoshop and it defaulted to 720 ppi.. Fortunately your results and my results are only a few thousandths of an inch different regardless of ppi.

You did this the way I normally would and should. That's the most expedient method but I'm stubborn and this was a fun challenge to do completely in Photoshop even though it took me a crazy amount of time. Everything was fabricated from scratch. I spent so much effort I'm going to post it 'just because' even though it offers no advantage to the OP.

Bruce

twingo_ mod_OnClear_4g_FullCrop.png
 
Way past my bedtime but I'm curious.
I opened the PDF in a HEX editor and the embedded image appears to be 1664 wide and 2176 high. Apparently the scanner defaulted to 200 ppi. I think if all of us resample to that 200 ppi we will maintain the same dimensions in inches and that same H & W in pixels
 
ex_teacher said:
Hmmmm I loaded the PDF directly into Photoshop and it defaulted to 720 ppi..
Click to expand...
It seems like Photoshop uses the ppi value you entered earlier (just checked in various PS versions) I've never noticed this before because I never actually open PDF files in PS.

So I extracted the 3 PNG files from the PDF and can therefore confirm your dimensions (2176x1664). In the original, the image appears to be rotated 90° and is then rotated again in the PDF.

Precisely for such reasons I do not work with PDF when it comes to image editing. Common lossless formats such as png, tif, webp, psd are clearly preferable there.
 
[ iLLuSioN ] said:
Common lossless formats such as png, tif, webp, psd are clearly preferable there.
Click to expand...
.webp are omnipresent but to use them I had to copy them to, then out of, a web browser to get them into PS.

I just found out I've been using a 2021 PS (don't ask) but the new version as of February this year natively supports this format. So I'm posting this incase I'm not the last to know.

PDF supports structured graphics images, of course, but it typically makes a jumble of the intrinsic nested shapes, to the point some graphics are not easily editable. However I often give PDFs with vectors to people that are going to a printer where it is just sized and printed...no editing. That way everyone can at least look at it in high quality
 
Back
Top